A sauna can increase your skin temperature to 40° to 50° celsius or 100° to 120° Fahrenheit. Which ultimately results in heavy sweating. Because of the heavy sweating, your body releases the bad toxins from your body through sweats. The high temperature also increases the heart rate as your body attempts to cool down. That also helps to keep your heart in condition. There are other health benefits as well such as easing pain, reducing stress levels, asthma, skin problems, etc.
Also, not everyone in your neighborhood has saunas in their house. So having a sauna in your house can add value to your house. You might think that having a sauna in your house can cost thousands of dollars. But we are glad that you are wrong. So in this article, we are going to look at how one can build their own sauna.
How Many Different Types of Saunas are There?
Saunas come in a variety of types depending on the heat source. But most commonly used saunas are dry saunas, steam rooms, and infrared saunas.
Dry saunas use a stove to heat special stones and rocks to produce desired temperatures. You can pour water on the rocks to produce humidity as well.
Steam rooms are also known as Turkish saunas, use both heat and humidity.
Infrared saunas basically imitate the body’s natural sweating ability. This head helps in relaxation, muscle pain, etc.
How to Build Your Own Sauna at Your Home?
Building your own sauna is not that hard as you might think it is. You just have to spend some time and a little bit of money and you will be relaxing in your own sauna at your own house in no time.
Buying the Kit:
When you are building your own sauna, it will be easier for you to build it using a kit rather than building it from scratch. You can shop around to find a kit that can transform a spare room or a big closet into a sauna. Or you can also use a kit to build a sauna in your backyard or garden.
Choosing a Location and Size:
While figuring out how to build a sauna, you have to figure out where you want to build it. Building an in-house sauna is relatively easy than building a sauna outside. If you have a room, garage, basement, or even a big enough closet, you can easily build a sauna there. But when it comes to building it outside, you have to build a wooden or concrete room first then you can transform it into a sauna. No matter where you build it, you have to make sure that you are close enough to a power source that can provide enough power to heat the sauna.
When it comes to the size, it completely depends on how many users are going to sit in it at a time. Depending on the users, you have to add benches as well. Most people prefer an upper and lower bench in their sauna. The upper bench is mostly used for lying or sitting on the heat and the lower bench is used as a cool-down spot. Also, a smaller room will be easier to heat faster.
Choosing the Heater:
There are mainly three types of sauna heaters: wood sauna heaters, electric sauna heaters, gas sauna heaters, and infrared sauna heaters. These three heaters basically have heated stone and rocks on them and water gets poured on the rocks. Another heating method is infrared lighting. They are known for producing penetrating heat. They are quite pricy as well. Electric heaters are the most popular and easiest ones to use. You can also use a ceramic or carbon heater. Ceramic heaters can heat up the entire sauna up to 150° but there will be some hot spots. On the other hand, Carbon heaters heat up the entire space evenly and offer a better experience.
Finding the Best Wood for Your Sauna:
You might ask a question that why saunas are built with woods and not with concrete? The answer would be, concrete is a better conductor of heat than wood. Concrete can easily absorb heat while wood can’t. So a room made with wood would be able to hold the head inside better than a concrete room. And a wooden room would heat up a lot faster than a concrete room. This is the reason why saunas have wood in them.
So choosing the best wood an important step in building a sauna. Saunas can reach up to 150° and more. So you will need wood that is flexible and doesn’t get damaged by moisture and heat easily. The best option would be cedarwood. Because they are well built, look beautiful, and are comfortable to sit on even in high temperatures. Cedarwood is also anti-fungal and anti-bacterial so you can easily maintain good hygiene in your sauna. If your budget is low, you can also go with basswood, to hemlock.
How much does it cost to build your own sauna?
The cost depends on the materials, size, location heating method used in the building process. If you are building a sauna by yourself using sauna kits, it is going to cost you around $2,000-$4,500 depending on the things that were used in the building process. If you hire professionals it can cost you even higher, from $4,000-$10,000 depending on your requirements.
Saunas are some of the great ways to relax and have health benefits as well. There is no need to go to a gym and pay hundreds of dollars to spend time in a sauna. You can easily build one for yourself. With a little bit of research and work, soon you will be chilling with your friends and family in your own sauna.